For many, life is slowly coming back

One month after terror attacks changed the world, much of the world is, in fact, the same.

People are going to work in the morning. They are laughing. They are going to the cleaners, mowing the lawn, arguing about sports.

"I was at Navy Pier right after the disaster," said Genie Ehnis-Lester, a Chicagoan who works for The Nature Conservancy. "It was packed. It was like any normal summer day. I just thought it was a sign of the resiliency of the American people."

Despite the dark knowledge that a war is under way, and a feeling of insecurity as background noise, there is as much evidence of strength as of anxiety among Americans horrified by the images of Sept. 11.

And although there are moments when it feels forced, some normalcy--at least for those not directly affected by the assaults--has returned. The New Yorker has cartoons again. The Chicago Marathon was the largest ever, despite rumors it might be canceled. Some 500 people exchanged wedding vows in Cook County. The National League and American League playoff games packed stadiums in Phoenix, Houston, Seattle and New York.

In short, time is doing its job of healing emotional wounds, experts say.

"Obviously there are individual differences," said Andrew Baum of the University of Pittsburgh, a psychologist who has studied victims of disaster. "You still see people buying gas masks and some people are still having nightmares.... But by now, most people are pretty much over it."

They feel changed, he said, but they are moving ahead.

"It's comforting to me to see people going about their daily business, that they aren't allowing people who have done this to stop us from leading our lives," Ehnis-Lester said. "If we allow that to happen, they win."

No one can question JoAnn Rockman's coping skills. On Monday, a man stormed the cockpit of her Chicago-bound American Airlines flight, sending the plane into a white-knuckled dive before two F-16 fighter jets guided it to safety at O'Hare. At the time, Rockman said she didn't know that the intruder was mentally ill and not a terrorist.

"All I knew was that I thought we had really bought the farm," said the Flossmoor resident, who was returning from Los Angeles along with her husband and 14-year-old son.

But when her travel agent called the next day to empathize about her ordeal, Rockman couldn't help but ask, "If you hear of any good deals for winter vacation...."

This is not a matter of bravado, she insists, but disposition. "It's just the way I'm wired. Of course, there's sadness, but you can't dwell on it. Obviously, a lot of other people feel the same way because the plane was 90 percent full."

That sentiment is echoed by Uwe Schillhorn, 37, a Chicago financial analyst who ran in Sunday's marathon without fixating on anything but the finish line.

"Perhaps I'd feel more vulnerable if I was with 40,000 people in a closed space, like an airplane, but the openness removed any real sense of danger," Schillhorn said.

He confesses to searching the skies in the days following the attack--his LaSalle Street office is in the shadow of the Sears Tower--but that reflex has diminished. "Intellectually, I know the dangers haven't left ... but life has a way of coming back."

Not everyone can paper over feelings of vulnerability. Karen O'Donnell, who lives on the Gold Coast with her husband, is still on edge, a fact she attributes to living in the city with young children, ages 3 years and 6 weeks.

O'Donnell has been reassured about evacuation plans at her daughter's Loop day-care center. She has talked to the pediatrician about anthrax medication. But doubts persist.

"Is it time to move to the suburbs? Does being a block away from City Hall put her in harm's way?" she asks herself. "I took her to `Disney on Ice' and I thought, `Should I do this?' I just don't know anymore."

To some extent, a sense of vulnerability can be healthy if it makes people more aware of potential dangers, said Ronald Davidson, director of the mental health policy program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

"We have to develop a new language in the sense that this is something entirely new to us as a country," he said. "It's not like a hurricane, a natural disaster that goes away. This [terrorism] threat is real. It's going to wax and wane."

He added: "This is also about our long-term emotional health. We need to become a more serious society."

For the moment, Michael Reuter, 39, is one of those who would say life has rebounded--even, in some ways, for the better. In the aftermath, he had an overwhelming desire to be home with his wife and three children. More recently, he said, "I've felt more grounded, more connected to what's going on, more sensitive to how others around me are feeling.

"At the same time, I found a renewed enthusiasm for the work I do," said Reuter, chief conservation officer for The Nature Conservancy. "I feel very honored to have the opportunity to try and conserve the natural world, which, to me, is a place where I find safety and comfort and creativity."